VISUALIZING REVELATION: Some Thoughts on Seeing Sinai: on Exodus 33-34 by Jill Nathanson and Arnold Eisen

Shalom Gorewitz Ramapo College of New Jersey

I am a practicing artist since 1971 whose work reflects experiences as a second generation Shoah survivor. This paper focuses on how the placement of visual art and text at a Jewish space in Manhattan led to contemplation of the intersection of art and Jewish . I will begin by describing the experience of meditating at Makom: The Center for at the JCC in Manhattan after the white, empty walls were covered with paintings by Jill Nathanson and text scrolls by Arnold Eisen. I will briefly introduce Makom at JCC, show examples of the paintings and text on PowerPoint, and relate how those of us regularly sitting in the space last summer began to integrate the verbal and visual texts into our practices. I will use PowerPoint to show the paintings and talk about how the Hebrew letters for Makom can be used in a visualization meditation. Through these illustrations and descriptions, I hope to say something about a unique fusion of visual art and spiritual practice. I will only discuss the paintings.

I based my analysis of Jill Nathanson's paintings on ideas that reflect personal artmaking, research into Jewish mystical sources concerning lights and colors, and the opportunity to see the paintings regularly at Makom. Nathanson self identifies as a practicing Jew and the idea that led to this series of collaborative and independent work started during a service.

Makom at the Manhattan JCC is a dedicated, oval shaped room designed in consultation with Reb Zalmon Schachter-Shalomi. The faculty includes Rabbis Jonathan Slater, Rachel Cowan, and David Ingber who are at the forefront of reintroducing Jewish meditation into service and everyday practice. I've practiced TM, , and various forms of meditation for 40 years while maintaining an ongoing connection to Jewish practice. I was fortunate to be John Cage's assistant while I was a high school student. He introduced me to Zen Buddhism, which has remained a thread in my life. When the JCC first opened in 2004, my wife and I began regular practice there. After my father died I went to a Shacharit service at B'nai Jeshurun or the meditation circle at Makom during the mourning period. In his Handbook of Jewish Meditation Practices Rabbi David Cooper quotes Pirke Avot- "All my life I have lived among wise teachers, yet I have found nothing better for oneself than silence. Rather than study, practice is the main teacher." Practice is where meditation, artmaking, and this conference intersect.

It took me by surprise that the director of Makom, Susie Kessler, and others at the JCC decided to exhibit a series of large paintings by well-known artist Jill Nathanson and text scrolls by the scholar Arnold Eisen, Chancellor of the Jewish Theological seminary in NY. At first it was disconcerting. Meditation rooms are generally austere and the walls are blank. The thick text and dense, colorful paintings seemed confusing and disruptive. However, as I began to look at the words and the

paintings more closely it was apparent that this work fit and became part of the teachings and discussions during daily sessions. Since one benefit of practice is accepting reality as it is, we certainly could tolerate paint and words as easily as sounds or an itch. As the initial feelings dissipated, we began to understand that in many ways the journey of the exhibition parallels our own contemplative practice. We began to use the installation as part of the various forms of meditation we explore during the formal classes. For example, during walking meditations, instead of slightly bending our heads, we walked with our eyes glancing over the canvases, passing a gaze toward fragments of English and Hebrew word forms with the walls in between becoming spaces and gaps. We observe, not trying to understand, just taking in and letting go. At the end of sitting meditation, we'd open our eyes slowly in the direction of a painting settling on a letter, color, or brush stroke, considering possible significance for insight and inspiration.

Mel Alexenberg, Norman Kleeblatt, and others have written about the impact of Jewish artists on 20th century art movements including Dada, Surrealism, Expressionism, and Abstraction. Is it possible to analyze Nathanson's paintings through the spectrum of Jewish tradition, leaving aside conventional western aesthetics? Nathanson's contemplation of the decisive moment in benei Yisrael's experience can only be fully understood within a Jewish context. It is an example of art that requires a specific Jewish kind of decoding. This relates to what Hamid Naficy, Nina J. Cullinan Professor of Art & Art History, Professor of Film and Media Studies at Rice University has aptly called accented narrative. For example, I admire Elia Suleiman's films, but I know there is a lot of subtext that I won't understand in the same way as an Israeli/Palestinian will. By more deeply analyzing the fragments of text, bold colors, abstract compositions, and other qualities we can see that this series of Jill Nathanson's work can be appreciated, but not fully understood without considering in its widest sense as including the evolving sweep of Jewish expression. When considered this way, the Seeing Sinai series shifts from abstraction to story-telling.

Beyond the and Kabbalistic sources, there are many examples of representative art in spaces and books since ancient time. The Mishkan is described in careful details concerning materials, colors, and content. There are several significant Orthodox Rabbi's who have written extensively about art. Abraham Kook (1864-1935) lived in London during World War 1 and his journals and published writing show that he was aware of modern art. As the first Chief Rabbi in Palestine, he recognized the importance of the arts for a diverse modern society. In Orot HaKodesh I, Rav Kook writes with critical insight about modern art, significance of colors, and other aesthetic details. One passage says, "What is disclosed in the vision is necessarily the least significant in the creative process. The act of creation itself, in its mystical character, its wondrous effects, the speed with which the streams of ideas flow does not permit us to comprehend the inner essence and character of the particular components of these flowing streams." HaRav, a poet with personal experience of the struggles of the creative process, encourages conscious and unconscious creative activities that penetrate to the depths of our own beings. He calls this "avodat Hashem b'gashmiut" the Chasidic idea that we can serve God beyond the performance of commandments, through all aspects of life, including artistic activities. Rav Joseph Ber Soloveitchik (1903-93), scion of a Hasidic dynasty, was head of a NYC and encouraged a synthesis of Western and Jewish ideals. While their ideas are

too complex to further discuss here, the fact that they brought the arts into their teaching prompts the question- Is there Jewish visual art aesthetics scattered through diverse traditional and contemporary writing?

In her notes for "Seeing Sinai" Nathanson writes, "The mysterious relationship of color and light on the material world, and to our feelings, is central to my painterly awareness, and the subtle energy of color in a field of visual dynamics is my approach to pictorial composition. A painting built of dynamics and affective flux, that retains its' process of creations seems to me a way to approach painting with the Indescribable in mind. I think of a painting as a visual process rather than an image. I look for the unknown in the dynamics of color relationships. I feel closest to the unknown as I feel for light on the optics nerves; when imbalances of hue set off a sense of instability and search."

Painting 1

The words in the paintings are Hebrew and fragmented from Exodus. There is no explanation or title next to each painting. There is a small panel near the window where a "key" is provided. The texts with the words used in the work are highlighted. As we walk in the door closest to the elevators, we immediately see this painting, and if we know how to read Hebrew might notice that the word Makom is prominent. The text for this panel is "Behold, there is a place with me...Please Grant me a vision of your Glory." In the Torah, the words are reversed. Moses, having done all that he was told, now asks, for the first time, something of God." Please Grant me a vision of your

Glory." The Compassionate One replies that a man cannot see the Divine and live, but places Moses in the cleft of a rock, where he can glimpse. Adonai says, "Behold, there is a place with me." For the words to make sense, they must be read from the bottom of the canvas up.

So let's follow the words up and our vision is startled by a big gap. The canvas is divided into three segments. They look like they can be a continuum, but there is this chasm, a falling off place. Between the question and the answer, the painting seems to say is Silence. What is this place? In the Torah Makom is used specifically to denote a sacred place of transition and transformation. This is the place of the burning bush and Jacob's wrestling with the angel. But it can also be the corner when someone helps an elderly person across the street. Meditation is never about relaxation or detachment: it is always about being awake and active. There is a notion that I've heard repeatedly from Jewish rationalists that Buddha retreated to a mountain to live some kind of life of bliss. The opposite is true, he continued to suffer like everyone else, and used his wisdom to teach about practical things we can do to help overcome our attachment to suffering. As the poet Alan Ginsberg wrote in his Jewish translation of Zen Buddhist principles, "It is not the suffering, it's the tsouris about the tsouris that is the problem."

Since these paintings were not made specifically for the JCC, it is a nice coincidence that the word Makom is prominent as one enters the space. Using the painted letters on the first canvas, we visualized the spaces around the shapes. The word consists of the letters Mem, Kuf, Vav, and final Mem. The first Mem has a gap; the final Mem has no gap. In the mystical tradition, the first mem signifies the waters on the physical plane; the final mem is the flow of the superconscious that is invisible but present. Kuf connects the upper and lower and literally illustrates the spine and path of breath. The Kuf is composed of a resh and a vav. Briefly, the resh is , breath, spirit; the vav connects the lower and upper worlds. The Vav is always active; it links, ends, and begins. The vowel dot is disconnected and changes the V to an O sound. It also contains the word "om" which is a universal . Each letter has a Yud built into it signifying the divine, a symbol of unity. This is how Hebrew letters become "characters" in the narrative of the painting. Beyond the form and literal meanings, the combinations of letters also represent intersection of layers upon layers of hidden meanings.

Nathanson uses color very carefully. In this picture looking from the top to bottom we see blue, reddish-brown then the gray gap that I spoke about earlier, and beneath that dull brown, some blue, brown. Even a basic color symbolism reveals a strategy that relates to the narrative intention: blue denotes ; the reddish brown is voluptuous and sensual. Gray can mean fear. The lower part of the canvas is a dull brown that rests above the blues and reddish brown that dominates the upper part. This dull brown can represent the lower level, undeveloped potentials. Moses wants to transcend the mortal fear that he knows comes with seeing the infinite, to stare into the abyss of , the endless and unknowable. He wants to join the lower and the upper. Adonai finds a place for him where he can experience a glimpse. The Holy One literally places Moses within the word Makom, in the Kuf. As Moses watches, the word itself is transformed to Mem Yud Mem, the flowing waters of the physical plane superimposed over the superconscious streams of the waters of righteousness, justice, and compassion that are other attributes of HaShem. There is a tender balance

in the brush stroke. The vav seems more faded at the bottom, as though there is a conscious pointing to the yud.

Painting 2

In the second painting the words are very fragmented. In a May, 2006 article in The Forward, Nathanson recounts Dr. Eisen's suggestion that she focus on the verbs. The four distinct phrases are also the first words of each sentence in the passage. The first word, almost invisible in the swirl of the divine cloud, is the word v'he'ye. This is a hard word to translate because, as Dr. Eisen said in the same article, these passages are God describing God. If we change the order of the letters we can easily see the yud hey vav hey. The other words are more straightforward. "...and I will put you....and I will cover you...and I will remove" These words come from the same paragraph as the first painting. God tells Moses that he will show himself, but only in a fleeting, shadowy way. Word fragmentation is a code in Kabalistic teaching for the scattering of the sparks. Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger (1847-1905), also known as Sefat Emet, teaches about how before Moses smashes the first set of tablets, the words fly off. These were the words that God had engraved over the entire surface of the tablets. Here they become an artist's prayer, just fill in the words: When I come to you I will put you before me and I will cover you and uncover you. Help me when the moment comes to make a mark, so that I know where inspiration comes from. Let me see through projections of colors and forms so that I can know something of your mysteries. Just as the mystics say the building of the tabernacle parallels the story of creation, so does any creative process. For the meditator it also has deep significance. Just as in the first

painting, the swath of no-color, of canvas untouched signifies silence; here too, the gaps between the words are filled with pauses, breaths, and contemplation. The colors in this and the next canvas are thick and tactile. They speak to each other.

Painting 3

The colors in the second and third paintings remind me of a conflagration in New Mexico's Jemez Mountains where a friend and I were camping. As we drove down the mountain the sky around us was a mix of extraordinary colors. The Torah describes how the Mystery of Mysteries manifests as a cloud of dust. These paintings are an illustration of ancient memory. The Israelites at Sinai hear what they see and see what they hear. When we say a Hebrew letter out loud we activate its power. The colors shift through the letters, they float and fade. God speaks and letters fall from the sky, "I am the Author." The people quake and tremble below. The Sefat Emet says we are each a letter in the Torah, that the attributes of the letters are available to us and that we should relate to them as we do to people, old friends, from time before the Time, when we were still all together. When we look at these paintings next to each other, we recognize visual parallels. One has crimson, the other a deep blue juxtaposed with shades of orange, wispy in the first, thicker in the second. Light blue streams from the left corner in the middle of the picture, as though moving to and mixing with golden browns, and an almost pastel yellowish orange. The first is more green and orange; the other changes the green for golden yellow and brown. The words in both are blended and stretched across the upper and lower parts of the canvas in similar kind of curved submersions.

The third painting says "And I will write on the tablets." Here the painter's prayer is completed. (The silent prayer as one stands before a blank surface.) In the second painting, the words are "while passing, I will put, I will cover, I will remove," in the third, they are: "I will write (paint, sculpt, shape) and reveal myself." You only have to know the smallest amount, see just a fragment. Let's look at the colors and patterns of the second and third pictures, as they sit across from each other at Makom. Blues, scarlet, orange, colors of the Mishkan, as designed by God the Architect. Andre Neher, in his book The Exile of the Word, calls a dash in Torah text a pause, a moment of silence. The rhythm of God's active presence is felt through the cycle of the reading. Perhaps the second and third paintings are of the same place at different times.

What is the awe of Mt. Sinai? If you close your eyes and slowly return, what is the sensation- what are you seeing, what are you hearing? Nathanson's response, as she witnesses in awe- is a vivid recollection of colors and formations of letters. The practicing Jew and the practicing artist are there together. The dualities of existence- diaspora/alliyah; religious/ethnic; thought/action dissolve for the moment. And what is a practicing Jew? Rituals, studies, prayer, and mitzvot are part of it. Reb Zalman says that the practicing Jew is aiming at an organic harmony that unifies action, participation, engagement, being in the moment.

Painting 4

The final painting is dominated by a vivid yellow with traces of white and wisps of green. Yellow, the color of fire, radiance, symbolizes high soul qualities and intellect. In ancient China, the color was reserved only for the emperor. Moses comes down from the mountain and the people recoil. "And they were afraid to come close to him. He placed a cover over his face." From this point on Moses has to wear a cover over his face when he is with people. He removes his cover only when he goes into the tent of meeting. Moses transcribes what he remembers and understands from the first tablets. He catches a glimpse of the divine and is literally enlightened. Through all of his adventures and actions, Moses was continuously tested, and this is the last of the miracles. The words themselves become fire, almost indistinguishable from the color. The zigzag line looks like a path down the mountain, a dividing shape, a pointer, the surface of the sun.

In his book Meditation and Rabbi tells a story about Exodus 33:18- "You cannot see My face, for no one can see Me and live." Rabbi Joshua was asked by King Androninos to show him His God. The rabbi replied, "very well, if you really want to see God look up and gaze at the summer sun." "But who can possibly gaze at the sun?" the king asked. "Listen to your own words; the sun is only one of God's vast multitude of servants. Still, no one can gaze at it. But God's glory fills the universe. How could a mere mortal possibly gaze at it?" In commenting on this, Kaplan says that being in God's presence would be like sunlight within the sun. Nothing is independent of the infinite. Existence is a mirror of the unknowable.

Jill Nathanson is an artist whose work shows subtle attention to details of painting on canvas. Each painting tells a story that can be read literally, but also symbolically, an abstraction with literal meaning. It is as if the members of the post Shoah generation can only see the fragments. Perhaps these short passages are like the repetitive of a Hasidic niggun, sometimes just sounds, sometimes praise to the Beloved. In Islamic Mudrassahs and Mosques the texts of the Koran are engraved in the architecture, why not in a Jewish sanctuary? But I can't help but wonder if the letters themselves become Jewish icons, at Makom, for example, replacing the Buddha's sculptured repose?

There is a precious moment after meditation that is at once physical and profound, the silence after the silence. We open our eyes, feeling refreshed, and everything around us feels new. We stretch- raising our arms and twisting torso's in slow motion unconsciously performing the bows to the left, right, and center that begin and end the Amidah. We drink in all that's around us, the others in the room, the details of the art and text on the walls. Meditation is an in-between place, time based yet independent of time. At Makom and a growing number of Jewish meditation centers and retreats, the experience can be transformative yet ordinary. One of the challenges of art and meditation is the observation of recurrent thought patterns, repetitive images. By paying attention to the moment one begins to empty of distracting and negative thoughts. Artists play that challenge out in a public space. They empty themselves by filling blank canvasses and empty spaces. During meditation and art-making something happens because of this tension between observation and release.

Books Cited

Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary Rabbinical Assembly of the United Synagogue of 0-8276-0712-1

The Alef-Beit- Jewish Though Revealed through the Hebrew Letters By Rabbi 1-56821-413-8

The Future of Art In a Digital Age By Mel Alexenberg 1-84150-136-0

First Steps to a New Jewish Spirit Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi 1-58023-182-9

Mindful Jewish Living: Compassionate Practice Rabbi Jonathan Slater ISBN-10: 0916219348 ISBN-13: 978-0916219345

The Exile of the Word Andre Neher 0-8276-0176-X

The Handbook of Jewish Meditation Practices Rabbi David A. Cooper 1-58023-102-0

The Essential Writings of Edited by Ben Zion Bokser 0-9769862-3-X

Meditation and Kabbalah Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan ISBN-10: 0877286167 ISBN-13: 978-0877286165

The Language of Truth The Torah Commentary of the Sefat Emet Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger Translated by Arthur Green 0-8276-0650-8